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Growth pains on the city's fringe

Tim Colebatch

MELBOURNE'S outer suburban fringe is growing at its fastest pace in decades, adding almost 1000 people a week, as greater Melbourne is swelling with almost a quarter of Australia's population growth.

New estimates by the Bureau of Statistics report that, in the past decade, the five areas experiencing the biggest growth in Australia were all outer suburbs of Melbourne.

South Morang grew from a fringe of 6667 people in 2001 to a large suburb of 38,895 by 2011. In one decade, it added the entire populations of Carlton, Fitzroy and Collingwood.

Point Cook was a close second; it began the decade with 2092 people and ended with 33,393, almost as many as South Yarra and Toorak combined. In the west, Caroline Springs added 21,400 people. In the south-west, Tarneit grew from 1427 to 22,473, while in the north, Craigieburn and Mickleham together doubled from 16,647 people to 35,807.

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All told, the bureau estimates greater Melbourne grew by a massive 647,164 people in a decade, its population rising 18.6 per cent to 4.17 million in mid-2011.

In the sheer scale of growth, no other Australian city came close. Sydney grew by 477,645 people or 11.6 per cent to just over 4.6 million.

If both cities continued growing at this pace, Melbourne would overtake Sydney by 2028 to reclaim the title of Australia's biggest city - for the first time since 1901.

Perth and Brisbane both grew faster than Melbourne - Perth growing by 26 per cent to 1.83 million, and Brisbane by 25 per cent to 2.15 million.

The bureau has revised its figures after the census found its estimate of Australia's population was roughly 300,000 too high.

The rapid growth of foreign students coming to Australia to study, interstate and overseas tourists, and service industries more broadly, has been the key to Melbourne's rapid growth. The bureau estimates 60 per cent of the state's population growth came from overseas migration, and just 40 per cent from natural increase.

No other city since the 1960s has experienced growth on this scale, or the strain it has placed on services: from public transport to hospitals, electricity and road space. Those growth strains are widely seen as a key reason for the unexpected defeat of the Brumby government in 2010.

While most foreign students settle in the city and inner suburbs, the city's population growth has been overwhelmingly on the outer fringe. The census found three rings: rapid population growth in the inner suburbs, modest growth (or even decline) in the middle and outer-middle suburbs, and booming growth on the urban fringe.

There was less growth in the middle. The population in Keilor, Wantirna, Endeavour Hills and Frankston shrank.

Regional Victoria saw rapid growth around Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo and in towns along the coast or the Murray River. The Barwon region added 29,285 people, more than 5000 of them in Torquay alone. But that growth was offset by widespread population losses inland, especially in an arc from the Western District through the Wimmera and Mallee to the irrigation areas in northern Victoria.

More than 1000 people left rural areas around Mildura. Almost 1200, or one in six of the population, departed from around Kerang. More than 3000 left the Wimmera.